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Extreme Rules (2012)
Extreme Rules (2012) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It took place on April 29, 2012 at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. It was the fourth event under the Extreme Rules chronology. Eight professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card and one pre-show match was streamed on YouTube. It included Brock Lesnar's first WWE match since WrestleMania XX in 2004. The concept of Extreme Rules was that the event comprised various hardcore-based matches. In the main event, John Cena defeated Brock Lesnar in an Extreme Rules match. Elsewhere on the card, CM Punk defeated Chris Jericho in a Chicago Street Fight to retain the WWE Championship, and Sheamus defeated Daniel Bryan in a 2-out-of-3 falls match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. The pay-per-view received universally positive reviews, with the main event and two world championship matches drawing high praise from critics and fans. The event received 263,000 buys, up 25.8% from the 209,000 buys for the previous year's event, whereas the next Extreme Rules event in 2013 received 231,000 buys, a drop of 12.1%. Storylines The professional wrestling matches at Extreme Rules comprised professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, WWE. Storylines between the characters played out on WWE's primary television programs, Raw and SmackDown. On the April 2 Raw, John Cena spoke about his loss to The Rock the previous night at WrestleMania XXVIII, which was dubbed a once-in-a-lifetime match and the most important battle of Cena's career. Cena asked for the Rock to come out so that Cena could offer his congratulations. Instead, Brock Lesnar came into the ring, making his first WWE appearance since 2004. Lesnar offered to shake hands with Cena but instead executed the F-5 maneuver, dropping Cena onto the mat. The next week, General Manager John Laurinaitis revealed that he signed Lesnar to bring "legitimacy" and for Lesnar to become the "new face of the WWE"; Laurinaitis also scheduled Lesnar to face Cena at Extreme Rules. On April 16, the match was made into an Extreme Rules match. On the January 2 Raw, Chris Jericho returned to WWE. He made it clear that he wanted to reclaim his title as the "best wrestler in the world," which CM Punk had claimed to be since Money in the Bank 2011. Punk defeated Jericho at WrestleMania XXVIII. In the weeks following the event, Jericho attacked Punk several times, once pouring a bottle of Jack Daniel's over him — a pointed insult to the straight edge Punk, and vowed to lead Punk "down the path to alcoholism just like his father." On the April 16 Raw, Jericho challenged Punk to a Chicago Street Fight at Extreme Rules for the WWE Championship. Punk had held the WWE Championship since November 2011 at Survivor Series. At WWE's Royal Rumble pay-per-view event on January 29, Sheamus won the Royal Rumble match to earn the opportunity to face either WWE Champion CM Punk or World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan for their respective titles at WrestleMania XXVIII. Sheamus elected to wrestle Bryan and defeated him in 18 seconds to win the championship. On the April 10 SmackDown, Bryan invoked his rematch clause for Extreme Rules. Bryan chose a 2-out-of-3 Falls format to prevent Sheamus from scoring another quick victory. Another rivalry heading into Extreme Rules was between Randy Orton and Kane. In July 2011, Kane lost in a Street Fight to Orton, and the two shook hands after the match as a sign of respect. In 2012, a newly re-masked Kane viewed the handshake as a sign of weakness, hence Kane started a feud with Orton and defeated him at WrestleMania XXVIII. Yet, on the April 6 episode of SmackDown, Orton defeated Kane in a No Disqualification match. On the April 10 episode of SmackDown, Kane attacked Orton and his father "Cowboy" Bob Orton. On the April 20 episode of SmackDown, a Falls Count Anywhere match between Kane and Orton was scheduled for Extreme Rules. On April 23, a rematch between Big Show and Cody Rhodes for the WWE Intercontinental Championship was scheduled; Big Show had won the title from Rhodes at WrestleMania XXVIII. Later that same day, a title defense by United States Champion Santino Marella against The Miz was scheduled for the pre-show. Also on April 23, Nikki Bella defeated the Divas Champion, Beth Phoenix, to capture the Divas Championship. Phoenix was slated to receive a rematch for the title at Extreme Rules, but was not medically cleared to compete due to a (storyline) sprained left ankle, and was replaced by Layla. This was Layla's first WWE appearance since the May 13, 2011 SmackDown. Layla had injured her knee at the previous year's Extreme Rules event and had subsequently been attacked by Kharma. Aftermath Extreme Rules saw the culmination of most of its feuds, some of which started before the previous pay-per-view, WrestleMania XXVIII. The Cena-Lesnar, Punk-Jericho, Sheamus-Bryan and Orton-Kane feuds ended at Extreme Rules; the only feud to continue on after the event was the Rhodes-Show feud, which ended before the next pay-per-view, Over the Limit. Immediately after Extreme Rules on the April 30 Raw, WWE's Chief Operating Officer Triple H refused to give in to Brock Lesnar's unreasonable contract demands, starting a feud between the duo and resulting in Lesnar attacking Triple H and (in storyline) breaking Triple H's arm. This led to Lesnar defeating Triple H via submission at SummerSlam. At WrestleMania 29, with Triple H's career on the line, Triple H defeated Lesnar in a No Holds Barred match. The feud ended in the main event of 2013's Extreme Rules, where Lesnar (with his manager Paul Heyman's interference) defeated Triple H in a steel cage match. Also on the April 30 Raw, General Manager John Laurinaitis, unhappy that his hand-picked star Lesnar lost to Cena at Extreme Rules, revealed himself to be Cena's next opponent for Over the Limit. In the storyline, WWE's board of directors declared that as a condition of the match, if Laurinaitis lost, he would be fired, and any wrestler who interfered would be fired. At Over the Limit, Laurinaitis defeated Cena after Big Show interfered on Laurinaitis' behalf. Show was free to interfere in the match because he had already been fired the week before Over the Limit by Laurinaitis after he mocked Laurinaitis' speech mannerisms. To determine the #1 contendership for CM Punk's WWE Championship, a Beat-the-Clock challenge was held on the April 30 Raw. A series of five singles matches took place where the victor with the lowest match-time was deemed the overall winner; Daniel Bryan set the fastest time by defeating Jerry Lawler in under three minutes. Notably, during the Beat-the-Clock challenge, The Miz avenged his loss to Santino Marella by defeating Marella in a non-title match. Marella eventually lost the United States Championship in August to Antonio Cesaro at SummerSlam. At Over the Limit, Punk retained his title in controversial fashion when Bryan rolled back onto his shoulders as he applied the "Yes!" Lock on Punk, Punk tapped out immediately after the referee counted a pinfall win for Punk. Punk would continue to hold the WWE Championship until January 2013 when he was defeated by The Rock at the Royal Rumble, a title reign of 434 days. Before Extreme Rules, Alberto Del Rio defeated World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus via disqualification on the April 6 SmackDown to earn a future title shot. After Extreme Rules on the May 7 Raw, Sheamus and Randy Orton faced Del Rio and Chris Jericho, with Sheamus accidentally delivering a Brogue Kick to Orton followed by Jericho hitting the Codebreaker on Sheamus and pinning him. Orton then gave Sheamus an RKO after the match. Due to this, the World Heavyweight Championship match at Over the Limit was made a fatal-four way match. Sheamus pinned Jericho at Over the Limit to retain his title. Sheamus remained as World Heavyweight Champion until October 2012, where he lost his title to Big Show at Hell in a Cell. Cody Rhodes' feud with Big Show continued after Extreme Rules, ending on the May 7 Raw when Show defeated Rhodes in a title match via count-out, but this meant Rhodes retained the title. At Over the Limit, Christian made his surprise return after a month's absence from injury and won a battle royal to earn an Intercontinental Championship opportunity later that night; Rhodes lost the match and the title to Christian. After Nikki Bella lost the Divas Championship to Layla at Extreme Rules, both Bella Twins received a title shot in a triple threat match on the April 30 Raw. Layla won the match quickly and the Bella Twins were "fired" from WWE (in actuality, the twins' contracts expired). Layla moved on to feud with Beth Phoenix, whom she beat at Over the Limit to retain her title. Layla remained Divas Champion until September 2012, where she lost her title to Eve at Night of Champions. After Extreme Rules, both Brodus Clay and Ryback's winning streaks continued through Raw and SmackDown into Over the Limit as Clay defeated the Miz while Ryback defeated Camacho. Clay's streak ended at 24 wins on the June 25 Raw with a loss to Big Show. Ryback's streak ended at 38 wins in October 2012 at Hell in a Cell with a loss to CM Punk. Meanwhile, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger moved on to feud with Tag Team Champions Kofi Kingston and R-Truth but would fail to win their title. Results Other on-screen personnel See also * List of WWE pay-per-view events * Extreme Rules Category:Extreme Rules Category:2012 Pay-Per-View Events Category:World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view events